“WELL SUNG, MASTER SKYLARK!” 43

song and singer—well met, I say! Nay,” he said hastily,
seeing Nick about to speak; “I do not care to hear thee
talk. Sing me all thy songs. I am hungry as a wolf for
songs. Why, Nicholas, I must have songs! Come, lift
up that honeyed throat of thine and sing another song.
Be not so backward; surely I love thee, Nick, and thou
wilt sing all of thy songs for me.”

He laid his hand on Nick’s shoulder in his kindly way,
and kept step with him like a bosom friend, so that Nick’s
heart beat high with pride, and he sang all the songs he
knew as they walked along.

Carew listened intently, and sometimes with a fierce
eagerness that almost frightened the boy; and sometimes
he frowned, and said under his breath, “Tut, tut, that
will not do!” but oftener he laughed without a sound,
nodding his head in time to the lilting tune, and seeming
vastly pleased with Nick, the singing, and last, but not
least, with himself.

And when Nick had ended the master-player had not
a word to say, but for half a mile gnawed his mustache in
nervous silence, and looked Nick all over with a long and
earnest look.

Then suddenly he slapped his thigh, and tossed his head
back boldly. “TI/’ll do it,’ he said; “Ill do it if I dance
on air for it! Ill have it out of Master Stubbes and
canting Stratford town, or may I never thrive! My soul!
it is the very thing. His eyes are like twin holidays, and
he breathes the breath of spring. Nicholas, Nicholas Sky-
lark,—Master Skylark, —why, it is a good name, in sooth,